Join the Conversation

Lakewood traffic worse on protest's second day

Margaret F. Bonafide, @mfbonafide;
10:58 p.m. EDT June 12, 2014

Buy Photo

Traffic is jammed along Pine Street in this view looking east from Route 9 at about 930am Thursday, June 12, 2014. As part of a courtesy busing protest, parents were told to drive their students to schools in the town.(Photo: Thomas P. Costello/Staff Photographer)Buy Photo

LAKEWOOD – By practically all accounts, traffic during the second day of a protest against the loss of courtesy busing was worse than the first.

Private school leaders wanted parents to drive thousands of children to their classes rather than ride public school buses for two days, as a demonstration of what might happen should students who live within 2.5 miles of their schools lose the free and unmandated service.

On Wednesday, knowing that chances were good they were going to pull out of their driveways or curb spots into a waiting traffic jam, some parents decided either to leave earlier or later than they normally would.

That caused some children to either arrive before their private schools could adequately handle them or late, after classes had already started, said Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, one of the organizers of the "drill."

So for Thursday, private school leaders asked parents to leave their homes at a more "realistic" time, rather than too early or too late, Weisberg said.

Thursday's coordinated departures might have contributed to the frustrations of drivers such as Abby Cohen, who felt her carpool commute took triple the normal time and left parents whose children stand to lose courtesy busing in an impossible place.

"Traffic is definitely worse today," said Cohen, who was stuck on Central Avenue shortly before 9 a.m. as she took her daughter and another girl to their school, Ateres Tzipora.

As a working parent whose children receive courtesy busing, the frustration of spending 30 minutes to make a 10-minute trip is disgraceful, Cohen said. She added that her daughter would have to walk along Central Avenue, where there are no sidewalks on the high-traffic road and nowhere to cross.

"It's dangerous. It's impossible," she said. "Even if we left earlier and dropped them off, there is no one at the school yet."

Weisberg and other community leaders called for the bus boycott to emphasize what would happen in September should nearly $4 million to continue courtesy busing for private school students in grades four to 12 not be allotted. Of the approximately 10,450 students who now use courtesy busing, more than 8,100 attend private schools, according to district documents.

Lakewood eliminated the busing from the $151 million district budget for the 2014-15 school year. The district is struggling to find the cash to keep up with an exploding student population, particularly in the township's private schools.

Most private schools in Lakewood are Orthodox religious centers, a reflection of the township's growing Jewish population. In 2009, more than half of its residents were Jewish, according to a survey by the University of Miami and the University of Connecticut.

Lakewood's population is projected to grow from 92,000 in the 2010 census to 220,000 by 2030.

On Thursday, Lakewood police deployed about half as many officers as they did Wednesday to help direct traffic at key intersections and to assist pedestrians crossing streets, Police Chief Robert C. Lawson said.

Five officers with the Ocean County Sheriff's Department who assisted Lakewood on Wednesday were not requested for Thursday, Lawson said.

"I was truly grateful to Sheriff (Michael) Mastronardy for his assistance, but told him we could handle it," Lawson said before Thursday's protest. He could not be reached for comment after Thursday's protest.

Some community leaders, such as the Rev. Glenn Wilson of United Neighbors Improving Today's Equality, believe staggering the start times of the private schools would be a way to alleviate traffic and to better utilize resources such as buses and tax dollars.